


Slave of Duty

by DarkCh1ld



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-25 12:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/952971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkCh1ld/pseuds/DarkCh1ld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leila's life isn't complicated—at least it wasn't. And then along came Harriet. Her boss' bratty 10-year-old is now living with her for the next month, while Carmen goes jetting off on another tropical vacation...alone. Leila has her hands full with the girl, work, and her zany best friend Annemarie's attempts at trying to hook her up with the sexy police officer they met at a bar. And while raising a child that has less manners than a prisoner is hard enough, Viktor is hell-bent on getting Leila to see him as more than a friend. What's a woman to do when she wants to live her own life, but she's a Slave of Duty?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The air in The Wave was thick with the smell of cigarettes and alcohol. Leila coughed lightly as she slid onto a stool at a table nearer to the corner of the bar, where the air was just clean enough to breathe normally, and waited for Annemarie to arrive.

 

She didn’t have to wait long. Annemarie was a free spirit when it came to anything except planned meetings—even a minute’s tardiness garnered at least two minutes of the silent treatment, and she fully expected the other party to reciprocate if she was late herself. So Leila was unsurprised when the tall, statuesque blonde strode easily through the crush of bodies on the dance floor towards the table. Her presence parted the crowd like Moses did the Red Sea, more than one pair of curious eyes turning to her.

 

Leila couldn’t blame them; more than once she caught herself staring at the blonde bombshell in envy and admiration. With an hourglass figure, perfect alabaster skin, stunning jewel green eyes, and curly golden hair that fell to just past her shoulders—now wrapped into a tight bun with two multicolored chopsticks holding it—Annemarie seemed to be every man’s wet dream. Leila twirled a lock of her own straight, thick caramel-colored hair around a finger and sighed, straightening up as Annemarie dropped onto her seat and grinned.

 

“I see you took my advice and ditched the glasses tonight,” the blonde noted happily, reaching out to tap Leila's nose.

 

Leila frowned and wrinkled her nose, grumbling irritably, “It’s stupid. Nothing’s gonna change just ‘cause I’m wearing contacts.”

 

“Aw, of course it will. Just look at you; those big brown eyes looking just like a little deerling! I wouldn’t be surprised if someone came over and scooped you out of that chair right this instant.” Annemarie cooed, her tone teasing but friendly.

 

Leila scoffed in disbelief. _Sometimes,_ she thought, _I can’t understand a thing that goes through Anne's mind._

 

“I do hope you mean a fawn, Honors English teacher, because otherwise I will have to call someone to revoke your teaching license for your blatant disrespect towards the English language just now.” Leila couldn’t help but grin when Annemarie giggled childishly, resting her chin on a fist, “So what are we doing here, Anne? It’s not even Friday, which means we’re not here to drink, so for what purpose have I been dragged away from the comfort of a warm bed and a good book?”

 

Annemarie didn’t seem to be paying any attention. She was scanning the crowd in the bar, gaze lighting on one person before swiftly shifting to another. Leila felt a strange sense of foreboding, saying slowly, “Annemarie…please tell me you're not doing what I think you’re doing.”

 

"Hey girl, that cop at the bar wants to cuff you." Annemarie sing-songed, leaning closer to Leila and whispering conspiratorially, "He's off duty."

 

Leila instinctively glanced over at the brunet slouched comfortably at the bar, flushing and looking away quickly when she noticed that his piercing blue-violet eyes were trained on her.

 

" _No_ , Anne. The last thing I need is a man right now."

 

"Oh, get over yourself, Lili. You know you're hot for him. I know about your weakness for blue-eyed Italians, and that man just _screams_ 'born in Rome.' One bad boyfriend shouldn’t destroy your entire view of relationships."

 

Leila sighed and rolled her eyes at her friend, resisting the urge to look over at the—admittedly sexy—police officer. Her efforts were thwarted, though, when Annemarie hopped down from her stool and sauntered right over to the man.

 

“Anne!” Leila groaned in irritation, scrubbing a hand down her face and peeking through the cracks in her fingers. The cop was staring at her again, as he had been since they caught each other’s eye earlier that night.

 

“Oh God…”

 

 _Damn_ the little troublemaker! She would _not_ talk to the good-looking policeman at the bar, she would _not_ talk to the good-looking policeman at the bar…. Leila’s valiant efforts to ignore anything that happened within the next thirty seconds were thwarted by a decidedly male voice piping up from behind her.

 

“Excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?”

 

“God…damn it.”


	2. Chapter 2

There wasn’t enough money in the world for Leila to willingly accept the task her boss had given her. Many a day was spent by harrowed employees, sitting in their boss’s office for a three-to-five hour lecture on proper procedure. Unfortunately, Leila seemed to be in her boss’s cross-hairs at the moment, and was thus saddled with her current job: babysitting Carmen Lowell’s bratty 10-year-old daughter Harriet for an entire month while Carmen herself went on an all-expense-paid trip to Fiji.

 

Leila frequently wondered just how Carmen could spare the time for the near-monthly vacations she took, but then remembered that Carmen was one of the most successful attorneys in Valley Springs, California, and she could tap into a trust fund many times greater than Leila's annual salary—not that her 46.6K legal assistant salary was anything to scoff at. She also had to question if it really was legal to just hand your child to office grunts for weeks at a time, but nobody in the office was brave enough to tread those waters.

 

Of course this meant that the girl had to live with Leila in her own one-bedroom apartment—which, if you asked Leila, was too small even for her. While some may have questioned why Carmen foisted her daughter off on unsuspecting employees, Leila was intimately aware of how often Harriet's nannies quit due to the work not being worth the pay. Her only pick-me-up was the blessed hours between eight in the morning and two in the afternoon that the girl was at school.

 

Just as she left the Lowell & Associates’ Law Offices, the familiar ringtone of “La Isla Bonita” sounded from her pocket. _So he wasn’t lying when he said he’d check up on me_ , she thought as she answered, holding her phone against her shoulder as she fished in her purse for her car keys.

 

“We’re sorry, but the number you are attempting to reach is not in service. Please hang up and try your call again,” she recited in a robotic voice, finally pulling the keys to her little blue Beemer out of the unholy mess that was her Coach handbag—a gift from her parents and Annemarie, respectively.

 

“Haha, very funny, Lil. How about next time, you keep the background noise to a minimum so it seems more believable. Lost your keys in that suitcase you always carry around again?” the deep, slightly accented voice was almost shockingly common, considering the short time that Leila had known this man.

 

Viktor Amaranto Ricci-Marcelo, 24-year-old chief of police in Valley Springs, California, had wound his way into her daily life faster than Leila could process the change. From the moment he spoke to her in The Wave three weeks earlier, she was hooked on his looks. Especially those striking blue-violet eyes—Annemarie wasn’t lying when she said that Leila had a weakness for blue-eyed Italians.

 

“So what are you calling for?” she asked instead of answering his sarcastic query.

 

“I just wanted to see how you were doing. I always call you after you're done with work, right?”

 

Something warm tingled in Leila’s chest at those words, but she beat it down and cleared her throat.

 

“So you're just satisfying a whim, then. I’ll be busy with work for the next month.” The admittance made her cringe inwardly, even as she slid into her car and started it up, “I’m taking care of the boss’s kid.”

 

“Ouch,” Viktor’s wince was almost audible, “so no time to meet up? Annemarie called and said your birthday was coming up soon; I wanted to take you out the weekend beforehand just in case I got caught up with work.”

 

That warm tingle was back, but this time Leila let it course through her. _He’s so good to me_ , she thought.

 

“…maybe. I’ll try to keep my schedule open. I’ll talk to you later, Viktor.”

 

“ _Ciao_ , Lil. I hope to see you soon.”

 

Leila could still hear that rich timbre when she hung up. She slid down in her seat, staring up at the ceiling in wonder.

 

“I’m going to die.”


End file.
